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Gestrin
The Empire of Gestrin or Gastrinian Empire is a multiethnic empire with territorial holdings across much of southwestern Ovaicaea. It is among the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in the continent, and rivals the New Empire in strength despite being considerably smaller. Gastrinian society is diverse and stratified, with differing rights accorded based on legal status and social class. Slavery is widespread and institutionalized, and full citizens form a privileged elite, with varying levels of freedom for subject peoples. Citizenship can be obtained by anyone recognized as such by the state, but in practice most citizens are hobgoblins and humans. Incorporating various peoples of different origins and faiths, it is notable for its successful model of a centralized, bureaucratic administration, for building infrastructure such as road systems and a postal system across its territory, the use of an official language across its territories, and the development of civil services and a large professional army. Gestrin's impact on art, architecture, culture, language, law, philosophy, and religion in the areas under its influence has been extensive. History Geography Society Gestrin is remarkably multicultural, with a rather astonishing cohesive capacity to create a sense of shared identity while encompassing diverse peoples within its political system. The Gastrinian attention to creating public monuments and communal spaces open to all, as well as common institutions throughout the empire, have helped to foster a sense of "Gestrinhood". Gastrinian society has multiple overlapping social hierarchies in a complex, stratified system structured by both civil codes and customary law. From the perspective of the lower classes, a peak was merely added to the social pyramid. Personal relationships—patronage, friendship, family, marriage—have always influenced the workings of politics and government. The stark social divisions between slaves and citizens was enforced in the early days of Gestrin's unification, and lasted for more than six centuries. However, when the empire began to expand beyond Gestrin Isle, and incorporated more people, a more dynamic society emerged where conquered people and freed slaves were given a pathway to citizenship. By the time of the Ricid dynasty, it was not unusual to find a former slave who was richer than a freeborn citizen, or a middle-class knight who exercised greater power than a noble, depending on their interpersonal connections. The rise to power of the hobgoblin federates in the 7th century shattered the ethnic boundaries of citizenship. This blurring or diffusion of the formerly-rigid hierarchies led to increased social mobility both upward and downward. Freed slaves, travelers, and subject peoples had opportunities to profit and exercise influence in ways previously less available to them. Social life in the empire, particularly for those whose personal resources were limited, was further fostered by a proliferation of voluntary associations and confraternities formed for various purposes: professional and trade guilds, veterans' groups, religious fraternities, drinking and dining clubs, performing arts troupes, and burial societies. This more fluid social hierarchy seemed to take its current shape during the early Leonid dynasty. Legal status According to noted 9th-century jurists Marcigal and Petamir, writing in their History of the Laws of Gestrin, the fundamental legal distinction between persons in Gastrinian society is that of free and slave. This distinction became qualified over time into a varying levels of legal status based on citizenship. Most citizens hold some rights, but are entitled to legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by those who lack citizenship. Citizens make up around 12% of the population, just over 3 million people. The vast majority of people subject to Gestrin do not hold citizenship, with 45% of the total population being free non-citizens or inhabitants of communities under treaty. Around a third of the population are slaves. In Gestrin, legal status can broadly be divided into the following categories: * Full citizens are those who have equal protection under the law regardless of social class, as well as certain enumerated rights. Rights available to a full citizen include: the right to own property, to engage in commerce, to enter into contracts, to have a fair legal trial, to marry another citizen, to serve in the legions, to serve in public office, to vote for local assemblies, to sue in courts and to be sued, to appeal decisions of magistrates and lower courts to the Gestrin royal courts, to travel freely, and to be exempt from torture. For the most part, only inhabitants of old Gestrin Isle, Gastrinian colony settlements, and the hobgoblins of the Aendril Mountains have full citizenship by birth, but some individuals can be granted citizenship by royal decree, and Montagnards who serve in the legions for 25 years are automatically granted full citizenship. * Montagnards are second-class citizens, with limited rights. Originally used to refer to the people of mountainous western Aendrilad who willingly sided with Gestrin during the conquest of that area, the term later came to refer to those who were raised to citizenship from a lower status. Such citizens have most of the rights enumerated to full citizens, but notably cannot travel freely without deprivation of status, nor can they vote or hold public office. A montagnard cannot, for instance, retain their citizenship rights if they relocate to a federate community or live outside of the protections of a citizen community. * Federates are citizens of communities which have treaty obligations with Gestrin, typically due to conquest, under which certain legal rights of the community are exchanged for agreed levels of military service, i.e. Gestrin's magistrates have the right to levy soldiers for the auxiliary forces from those communities. Federates have most of the same rights as montagnards, but cannot serve in the legions nor own property above a certain acreage. However, a federate can gain Montagnard rights by serving in an auxiliary regiment for 25 years and relocating to a citizen settlement. * Peregrines are any other free persons living in the Gestrin Empire. The term originally meant "travelers" and referred to resident foreigners, but today it indicates any free non-citizen. Peregrines lack many of the rights of citizens and even federates. They do not have the right to a trial or to appeal to the royal courts, to sue citizens in court, to marry citizens, to serve in the legion, or to vote or hold public office. Peregrines are subject to summary justice by local magistrates, and are required to pay certain direct taxes. Freed slaves are automatically peregrines. A peregrine can, like a federate, gain Montagnard rights by serving in an auxiliary regiment for 25 years. * Slaves, who are not a subject but an object of law. Slaves are considered property, not persons. A master has the right of ownership over the slave. A slave can be sold, pawned, and exploited as any other chattel, and a master can treat their slave as if it were any other personal property. Slaves cannot own property and cannot marry or have a legally-recognized family. In all cases, legal status is inherited based on the mother's status. Slavery The most recent census indicates that there are just over 8 million slaves throughout the Gastrinian Empire, around a third of the total population. As many as 40% of the people on Gestrin Isle are slaves, and in conquered areas slaves make up on average a quarter of the population, sparse in the islands and South Mocryae, but more concentrated in Old Tethar and East Gestrin. Slavery is a complex institution that supports traditional social structures as well as contributing economic utility. In urban settings, slaves might be professionals such as teachers, physicians, chefs, and accountants, in addition to the majority of slaves who provide trained or unskilled labor in households or workplaces. Agriculture and industry rely on the exploitation of slaves. Slavery in Gestrin is not based on race, and no one ethnic group comprises a majority of the slave population. The institution of slavery has a long history in Gestrin, originating from a time before the empire unified Gestrin Isle. The kingdoms on the isle, as well as neighboring nations in the coasts and islands of the Gulf of Gestrin, practiced slavery for centuries. Slaves were typically captives taken in war, and it was widely recognized as a natural right of nations that the victor in war could render its defeated enemy enslaved, forced to work for the profit or improvement of the victor. Marcigal and Petamir wrote that "slavery is the state that is recognized by the law of nations in which someone is subject to the dominion of another person, contrary to nature," implying that there is an assumption that people are born free in a state of nature, and that slavery is a civilized institution. Slaves were mainly captured as war booty, with sometimes tens of thousands of slaves taken in the conquest of a rival kingdom or city-state. Even in more recent centuries, Gestrin's conquests have provided a continued influx of war captives to be sold as slaves. Slaves are also traded in markets and sometimes sold by pirates. Infant abandonment and self-enslavement among the poor are other sources, as debtors have long been able to sell themselves or their children into slavery to absolve a debt. Merchant slavers from neighboring countries, such as Tethar and Aendrilad, sell slaves to Gastrinian slave markets by way of extensive trade routes, both overland and by sea. Criminals can be condemned to slavery for certain crimes. By contrast are the "homegrown" slaves, born to female slaves within the urban household or on a country estate or farm, who are slaves from birth and owned by their mother's masters. Although they have no special legal status, an owner who mistreated or failed to care for such slaves faced social disapproval, as they are considered part of the family household. Over time, laws pertaining to slavery have become extremely intricate. Injury to a slave by third party is dealt with as any other kind of property crime, with the injurer held liable for destruction of property. Having no legal personhood, slaves have no name, no ancestors, and no family in the legal sense. The testimony of a slave is not admissible in court without torture. Slaves have no right to legal marriage, but their unions are sometimes recognized informally. Legally, a slave cannot own property, but a slave who conducts business might be given access to a discretionary fund. Slaves have gained increased legal protection in the past two centuries. A bill of sale might contain a clause stipulating the kind of the work the slave can or cannot do. Slaves, while not having rights as a person, can lodge administrative complaints about such illegal treatment. Royal decrees have prohibited masters killing slaves without cause, and a master who has killed a slave can be tried for murder. Debtors can either sell themselves into slavery, sell their children into slavery, or can be forcibly seized by a creditor as a slave to resolve a debt. Typically, a debtor contractually pledges their servitude as surety for a loan, often with specified terms in the contract for the conditions of their servitude. Debt slavery is more akin to an indentured servitude: they are enslaved for a set period of time, until a specified work obligation or sum of money is fulfilled, or until a third party provides surety for the debt. Debt slavery is more common in urban areas, and most debt slaves are educated professionals. Subsequent laws have prohibited torture of debt slaves. Types of work Slaves work in a wide range of occupations that can be roughly divided into five categories: household or domestic, public, urban crafts and services, agriculture, and mining. Just under half of all slaves are owned by the top 2% landowners, and are predominantly used for agricultural work. Despite this, they are a relatively small part of the rural population except on some large plantations. Farm slaves live in more healthful conditions than urban slaves, being far from disease-ridden towns and cities, but still are engaged in harsh and constant labor. Slaves in urban areas make up a much higher proportion of the population, with slaves making up roughly a quarter of the population in Gastrinian cities. Slaves in urban areas are typically domestic workers, or engaged in commerce or manufacturing work, or are skilled professionals. Records enumerate over fifty jobs a household slave might have, including barber, butler, cook, hairdresser, handmaid, wet nurse, teacher, secretary, accountant, and physician. A noble's large household, like an urban manor or country villa, might be supported by a staff of hundreds. In urban workplaces, the occupations of slaves include fullers, engravers, shoemakers, bakers, mule drivers, and prostitutes. While not a legal obligation, it is customary for educated and responsible house slaves of wealthy masters to be given regular stipends and a personal fund, partly as a means for wealthy families to display their wealth and generosity. Slaves in public service are handled differently from most other slaves, and typically have some of the best living conditions alongside domestic slaves. A public slave is owned, not by a single master, but by the state as a whole. Public slaves are usually engaged in basic tasks in public buildings, urban maintenance, or state temples, or as servants and staff for magistrates and public officials. Some educated slaves might work in skilled office work, such as secretarial or accounting jobs in the bureaucracy. Public slaves, unlike almost all others, are by law granted a regular stipend for personal use; most use this as a fund towards buying their freedom. Because they have an opportunity to prove their merit, a public slave can acquire a reputation and influence, and are sometimes granted freedom by a magistrate's declaration. The harshest and most brutal conditions are found in mines and quarries, which are worked mainly by those condemned to slavery as a legal penalty for significant crimes, such as murder, rape, or desertion of the army. Such convicts lose their citizenship, liberty, and their property is forfeit to the state. Slaves condemned to the mines are owned by the state and cannot be sold, buy their freedom, or be set free. Slaves also make up about half of the warriors in fighting pits, which is particularly dangerous entertainment work. Fighting slaves might earn a lucrative living if they are successful, being paid highly for business endorsements or earning money through gambling. Fighting slaves very often are able to buy their freedom, and become professional pit fighters and athletes. Emancipation Manumission, the process of freeing slaves, can be done in various ways. Gestrin has gone through different phases of more or less restrictions on manumission, as rulers have variously been concerned for the plight of slaves and concerned for the stability of the slave labor pool. A freed slave becomes a peregrine, a free non-citizen with limited rights, and is bound by statute to a patron-client relationship with their former master. A slave can be freed under the following ways: * A master can bring their slave before a magistrate or judge, state the cause of the manumission, and undergo a manumission ceremony. The magistrate then enters the slave's name into the census rolls as a free person. * A slave can be freed by testamentary manumission, by way of their master's will at death. Laws limit the number of slaves that can be freed in this way to up to one hundred. * A slave can be freed by appealing to the legal sanctuary of a temple to Ilmater, the god of suffering and liberty, and taking shelter in that temple for a period of a year and a day. This is the only condition under which a runaway slave might be freed. Otherwise, a fugitive slave is subject to a punishment at their master's discretion, up to and including execution. * A slave's bill of sale contract might stipulate conditions under which a slave can be freed, such as a pre-set sum of money presented to the master, or pre-defined work obligations. This is statutorily required for debt slavery, but sometimes can apply to other kinds of slaves bought at market. When a slave "buys their freedom" it is usually because of such sale contracts. Slavery, while institutionalized and a significant part of Gastrinian economy and society, is not fully accepted by every person. There have been, since ancient times, philosophers and others who opposed slavery as an institution, and many more who have opposed mistreatment of slaves while not opposing the institution as a whole. Notably, the Liberated Society is a fraternity of like-minded writers, concerned citizens, and philosophers, which has petitioned for the abolition of slavery and its replacement with a different institution. Some advocate for full enfranchisement of slaves as peregrines or even citizens, while most advocate for a "soft" servitude system such as the feudal serfdom common in the lands north of the Tethar Mountains. Such societies and individuals have been successful in pushing for laws that mandate more humane treatment of slaves, such as laws that forbid certain kinds of punishment, laws that allow slaves the means to make complaints to local officials, and laws that make a master liable for murder if they kill a slave without cause. Government and military The major elements of government in Gestrin are the central government, the provincial government, and the military. Gestrin has integrated new territories through a consistent pattern: the military established control through war, followed by the settlement of citizens in colonies in the new territories, but after an enemy city or people are brought under treaty, the military mission transitions to a policing and peacekeeping one. The armed forces in a new territory then maintains the border, protects Gastrinian citizens, and defends the resources of the region. These territories are organized into provinces, which report to the central government. Central government The central government, also referred to as the royal or imperial government, is ostensibly under the executive authority of the King of Kings. In practice, the royal government is a partnership between the King, the Mayor of the Palace, the central bureaucracy, and the Senate. The King is the head of state, acting as the physical embodiment and symbol of the state, and has the final say in directing policy. The King also acts as the chief priest of the state worship of the traditional gods of Gestrin, a tradition that has its roots in pre-unification period. The King's authority partly derives from this religious sanction. The King formally acts as chief judge, chief executive, and chief commander of the army. In practice, power is exercised by the Mayor of the Palace, a kind of chief minister to the King. In the past, the Mayor of the Palace has been an intermediary between the King and the rest of the central government, chamberlain to the King's household, and chancellor of the royal treasury. The Mayor of the Palace today holds power from their closeness to the King, their position as Master of the Armies, their control over the Royal Household, and their command over the Treasury. Since the Hobgoblin coup in 684, the Mayor of the Palace has been the unofficial governor of the whole empire, directing policy by holding power over both the bureaucracy and the military. Since the coup, the Mayor of the Palace has been functionally hereditary to the Brekacids, the princely house of the Hobgoblins, though the position is technically appointed by the King. The imperial bureaucracy is the complex system of elected and appointed magistrates, officers, and public servants who manage the various functions of the civil government. The capital alone has over 6,000 bureaucratic officials. The center of the bureaucracy is the presidium, a committee of magistrates elected by the Senate called curators. The committee is chaired by the Mayor of the Palace, who by statute is curator of the royal and state treasury. Each curator is appointed to a parallel office in the Royal Household, the so-called Great Offices of State. These offices give them authority over particular matters of state, and are prestigious titles of honor. Below this council are the ministers, senior bureaucrats that handle day-to-day affairs of particular branches of the bureaucracy as the chief secretaries and deputies of the curators. There are departments for War, Justice, Diplomacy, Commerce, Trade, Temples, Public Welfare, Public Works, the Postal Service, and the Treasury. Within each department there are offices and sub-offices responsible for minute details of administration, largely staffed by freed persons and public slaves. While much of the central administration is appointed, the judiciary is composed of officials elected by the Senate. The Senate is the main advisory and deliberative assembly of the government. Originating from the Zonara municipal council of elders, the Senate evolved into a collection of nobles, magnates, and notables from across the empire. The modern Senate draws its membership from the political elite of both the capital and the provinces, including Gestrin's traditional nobility, landed aristocrats, rulers of federate communities, and citizens previously elected to high public office (quaestors, curators, and praetors of the capital). In theory, the Senate exists as a check on royal authority, a responsibility it has held since time immemorial, and as a representation of the citizens of Gestrin. In practice, the informal networks of patronage that links the Senate's members to the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, particularly to the Mayor of the Palace, ensures that the Senate generally approves the actions of the royal government and legislates in its favor. This has led outside commentators to refer to Gestrin a tyranny or autocracy, but Gastrinians see this as an extension of natural networks of patronage and personal relationships. Provincial government Even with magical means of rapid communication and a respected integration of war magic into their strategy, Gestrin has lacked the manpower and resources to impose their rule through force alone. As such, the imperial government has had to cooperate with local authorities to maintain peace, collect revenue, and keep the flow information since its earliest days. This is done through a provincial bureaucracy that ultimately reports to the central government. The main liaison between the central government and the provinces are the provincial governors. The twenty-six provinces are each governed by an official nominated by the King and approved by the Senate. A governor is typically a former judge or other high official, with experience in judicial and administrative matters. A provincial governor is advised by appointed judicial, treasury, and military officials. Governors are given extensive leeway in administering their provinces. Within each province are various lands, generally divided into freeholds and communities. A freehold is any plot of land that exists independently of a chartered community. While landowners are free, only full citizens retained their full legal rights as freeholders; montagnards and federates only retain their unique slate of rights as members of a community. Around a half of all land is owned by private citizens, with around a third owned by communities, and the rest owned by Communities are divided into three kinds: colonies, municipalities, and federate allies. Colonies are chartered settlements of Gastrinian citizens with the intention of transforming the local area in a process of "Gestrinization", by spreading Gastrinian culture, language, and ways of life. The historian Vericus Sevillian wrote, "colonies are the tools of empire". A Gastrinian colony serves as an outpost and trade hub, and a place to settle military veterans after retirement. Blended communities are chartered as municipalities, typically market towns or fortifications that have heavy settlement of both citizens and peregrines. In both kinds of communities, citizens can vote for local assemblies and have the right to stand for public office in communal government. Entire settlements or tribes can be granted federate status, by entering into treaties with Gestrin. Inhabitants of federate communities possess a limited form of citizenship rights in return for military obligations to the empire, and the community's rulers are typically granted full citizenship by royal decree. These communities are legally considered to exist "in federation with" the empire rather than as an integrated part, but functionally they are autonomous areas under Gestrin's control and authority. Federate status is used often as a way to integrate major, pre-existing settlements of conquered territories into Gestrin, but it could also be used to bind a tributary or allied people into the same sort of mutual obligation. The Goblin Confederacy, for instance, was a federate community despite their nomadic way of life, until their grant of full citizenship in 685. Communities that demonstrate loyalty to Gestrin retain their own laws, can collect their own taxes locally, and generally are able to govern themselves through local and municipal institutions. Legal privileges and relative autonomy are an incentive to remain in good standing with Gestrin among these communities. Military The Gastrinian Royal Army is composed of professional soldiers that volunteer for twenty years in active duty, and five years in the reserve. The army transitioned to a professional force gradually under the late Tiverine dynasty, in the 2nd century. Prior to that, the Royal Army was composed of conscripts raised during wartime for a specific threat, and demobilized after. This process that became increasingly inefficient during the empire's expansion, as repeated wars meant demobilizing and raising troops over and over again. The reforms of King Marcus II established a professional army composed only of citizens, organized into self-sufficient legions of four thousand soldiers. The Marcian Reforms reorganized the way federate communities and non-citizen residents provide support for the army, by systematizing the Army Auxiliary as regiments providing logistical support, cavalry, light infantry, and specialist troops while the Royal Legions became dedicated heavy infantry. Under the Marcian Reforms, the army became a full-time career in itself. Economy Category:Locations Category:Nations